I thought they were selling the $12 tickets at the happy hours, so hopefully they're doing both... getting folks that can Metro to a happy hour after work to buy tickets and to Metro out to RFK for the game (and $2 beers) after work on Wednesday.
Now is the time to hit returning students--wallets are at their fattest now. We had a couple of interns in my office who attended the last college night or whatever it's called, they were all first timers and said they had a great time. Question, do DCU SGs have college "chapters" or anything like that? Coming off that match on Sat, this is going to be a great one to be at.
I believe the mission to get exposure to that segment of the market, and to sell tickets, yes. Because of the new generations' general acceptance of soccer as a mainstream sport, the expendable income, and the happy hour party mentality that is similar to tailgating, etc, I think this is a wise marketing strategy. There aren't many segments of the market that are tailor-made for selling weeknights, other than corporate, and those are going to die off in the current climate. I'm not sure how much of a bump they can expect, but it's about the only game in town to market these games, I think, and weeknight games aren't going to go away. As for Kilroy's, like I said, it prob just falls outside this very sharply focused effort. A good question that I was already thinking. It seems like a SG could partner with greek orgs on campuses and really make a killing on getting poeple to the game, if not even selling memberships. It seems like a natural marriage to me, but I'm not involved, so I don't like to ask questions and create work for other people. Not many teams have the ability to take this unique approach, because few are located in a place with public transit and a LOT of colleges in their grasp. I'm interested to see how it pans out.
Eh, they're not that small. Both GW and Georgetown have ~10k students. Not sure on the grad/undergrad breakdown, but that's not exactly chump change. Plus you've got Maryland just up the road...
I don't know Boston's numbers, but the DC metro area has more than most places, particularly if Maryland and Mason are in the mix, but even if not: Maryland, College Park - 26,000 undergrads, 37,000 total Mason - 18,500 undergrads, 30,000 total GW - 10,000+ undergrads, 24,000+ total Georgetown - 7,000+ undergrads, 15,000+ total Howard - 11,000 or so total American - 6,000 undergrads, 8,000 total UDC - 5,000 undergrads Catholic - 3,000 undergrads, 6,000 total Galludet - 1,000 undergrads
Have you ever thought about announcing one of these HHs more than just a few hours before thay occur so people can change their plans? and the first SG that alligns itself with a fraternity, I'm getting a refund from ...... now, a sorority, we might be able to talk
Growing up in Virginia, I never ever thought of DC as a college town. In fact, quite the opposite -- I thought it was odd that DC didn't have a huge university. I guess I had ignored UMd...but I'm going to leave it at that . Mason is (was?) a commuter school, so I ignored that growing up.
College Students - Why not just join an SG for the love of the game? (I did.) Then you can incorporate that into your ritual. (However depraved that may be...)
if a SG ever teams up with a frat, im creating the 500 level supporter group to stay as far away from that as possible
It might be if my other plans weren't working late so I could take off Thursday morning to recover from my celebratory hangover
Well, since the idea was in my post, I'll just say that I didn't suggest "alligning", or "teaming" or anything else with a specific greek organization. I said, organizationS, plural, and I suppose I meant more in terms of dealing with them all through an umbrella organization at each campus to mine them for new members. There would be no association with any greek group at all, just mining them for membership candidates. So the greeks members can also become members of a SG, a totally new affliliation. I would hope nobody in my chosen SG finds out that I also have a BJ's wholesale card and decides to revoke my membership.
OT: Boston's insane in this regard by any standard, and thus is a poor thing to compare to. Nothing in the US compares to Boston. Within the 128/95 arc (basically, Boston's equivalent of the Capitol Beltway, there are ~50 colleges of different types (and that's not counting affiliated professional schools as separate institutions -- Harvard, Harvard Medical, Harvard Law, etc., all count as one), six with over 10,000 students and three with over 20,000; extend your radius another 15 miles out and you have about 100 colleges with about 250,000 students total. Thus the funny line in This Is Spinal Tap when their show in Boston gets cancelled; their manager tells them "I wouldn't worry about it -- it's not a big college town."